The first Times-Picayune/Lucid Poll will provide a snapshot of the presidential race in the wake of Monday night's debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Posted by: Lucid

Global audience platform Lucid and NOLA Media Group, Louisiana’s largest media company reaching more than 7 million users per month through The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com, are partnering to provide important information through polling on a variety of subjects, including a daily tracker of voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

Lucid, an international business based in New Orleans, connects survey takers with market researchers, reaching more than 1 million people daily. The Times-Picayune/Lucid Polls will use Lucid’s technology and the extensive reach of NOLA.com to regularly provide deep and scientifically sound insights into public opinion.

The first Times-Picayune/Lucid Poll, released Wednesday (Sept. 28), provides a snapshot of the presidential race in the wake of Monday night’s debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. NOLA.com will publish results from the presidential tracking poll daily through Election Day, Nov. 8.

The Times-Picayune/Lucid presidential poll is a non-probability survey based on more than 400 likely voters responding online each day. More than 30,000 people have been in the survey pool since Aug. 1, and daily results are based on a rolling, three-day weighted average of responses, avoiding daily “noise” or temporary anomalies. Likely voters are defined as those who self-identify as being registered to vote and who say they are likely to vote Nov. 8. For full results and methodology, click here.

The gap between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump widened slightly Tuesday (Sept. 27), the day after the presidential candidates’ big debate, but only because Trump’s support dropped, not because Clinton gained.

The Times-Picayune/Lucid Poll will also survey local respondents to track Louisiana state and local political races, starting with a poll on the U.S. Senate race next month.

The partnership also will provide regular data-driven views into the news of the day and topics of broader human interest. The first such survey, also published Sept. 28, measures national and statewide public opinion about the importance of recess, which recently became a hot-button issue for the Jefferson Parish School Board.

“At a time when strong opinions are everywhere, we owe our readers real insight, based on meaningful data, about local and national public attitudes on the issues of the day,” said Mark Lorando, Editor and Vice-President of Content for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.

The Times-Picayune/Lucid Polls provide a demographically weighted counterpoint to the unscientific, reader-participation polls designed to engage the online community on many news websites, including NOLA.com. The validity of those reader surveys became a 2016 campaign issue when candidate Trump cited them as evidence that he had “won” Monday’s debate.

“Unlike reader polls that survey respondents who happen to be reading a specific article or website, Lucid’s platform finds survey-takers through a marketplace that diversifies where respondents come from and blinds the subject matter of the survey that each respondent will take,” said Eli Ackerman, Lucid’s Director of Polling. “Lucid’s findings also take into account each survey-taker’s demographics so that the model is representative of the population at large.”

Louisiana does not require schools to include a free-play break for students.

As more people cut the cords to their landlines in favor of cellphones and are more resistant to taking surveys, traditional telephone polling is becoming more difficult. Some national and international news organizations are looking to online polling as a way to measure public opinion and share the information with readers.

Ed Chervenak, political scientist and director of the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center, consulted with Lucid on its methodology and will continue to serve as an adviser to ensure the poll’s objectivity, validity and transparency.

“The Times-Picayune is committed to great journalism and great data — both of which come from accurate, real-time information,” NOLA Media Group CEO Tim Williamson said. “Lucid’s platform is a massively scaled source of public opinion on many subjects. In addition — and this means a great deal to us — both our companies are category leaders born in the great city of New Orleans. We look forward to bringing The Times-Picayune/Lucid Poll to a global audience.”

“There’s only one data source better than what’s usually called ‘first-party data’, and that’s asking a human being a direct question and getting a direct answer,” Lucid CEO Patrick Comer said. “We access this data at scale and are excited to partner with The Times-Picayune in using direct human answers to drive a new kind of polling.”